Humanity and humanness are two very different things. This week, in a span of just a few minutes, I experienced a deeply gratifying connection with someone through our humanness as well as exhibited my humanness in response to what I perceived as someone else’s lack of humanity. If it sounds confusing, it wasn’t. Our humanness tells us we are weak, lesser beings in a God-shaped world. But in our weakness, through all of our foibles and failures, miscommunications and mistakes, we can get humble and do the unthinkable: ask for help. More often than not, someone will be there offering a hand, in a show of grace and humanity. The pandemic, however, has certainly challenged this simple truth. The hands we thought would be there weren’t. We had to venture into inhumane territory to find the resources necessary to survive, in a time when venturing anywhere was verboten.
I intended this space, the first section of each newsletter, to be for stories from the pandemic. Revisiting these experiences has been eye-opening, painting a picture of people, places, and things I often don’t recognize. In getting it down on paper, I am able to see that these stories aren’t just for me. So I’m taking a moment to reaffirm the purpose of this undertaking: an e-newsletter that offers light in the darkness, an unabashed account of life’s bleaker moments, made less bleak through humor, candor, and clarity. I hope to never preach, only to be a servant of the message that comes through what I’ve seen, heard, touched, and lived. I hope you find hope in these words and images.
FERAL-O-METER
WARNING: Rant level YELLOW.
You know what? There’s not been a peep from my friend about our tiff involving the ceramic figurine and the real need to take a long hard look at ourselves and our deeply engrained, systemic biases and prejudices. The natural companion to this is the re-evaluation of our relationships, which took a front-seat for many people during the pandemic, along with re-defining how each of us engages with the world. In other words, what do we bring to the table? I brought the whipped cream. I hope someone thought to get the strawberries and the shortcake.
I promised The Fool, and that’s probably why I’m late with the new issue. If you haven’t gathered, I am this archetype. The fool is “the precursor to the savior”, wrote Carl Jung, which is a tough pill to swallow for someone whose names are those of kings and whose initials make Jesus Christ Superstar. I’ve always had a thing for Jesus, believing him to be a cool dude and the world’s first real celebrity. I admire and respect him and could only hope to live and love the way he did (and does). But I am the fool, an esteemed guest of the royal courts, hob-knobbing with the rich and famous while not qualifying myself.
My wit and words apparently have left a lasting impact on a few people. They’re like, “Ohhh, remember when you said this, that, or the other thing?! It’s one of a) my favorite memories of college, b) those moments that changed the way I look at the world, c) just a few times that I cried so hard I peed, d) you get the gist.” Most of these examples I have ZERO recollection of. How could my throwaway zingers have such staying power? It should give anyone pause to consider the effect their thoughts, opinions, and voices have on others, compelling us to “be impeccable with our word” as Don Juan would have us do.
Some facts about this often misunderstood and misrepresented archetype:
The fool is a seeker, questioning everything in his pursuit of knowledge, meaning, and purpose. His tools are humor, originality, and deep observation. A good fool helps lighten the tension in the room, pushing past fear with moments of levity and hilarity. But when out of balance, the fool becomes a sad clown, degrading himself and prolonging his healing by dragging himself down. This couldn’t be more true, as I’ve been stuck and mired in my own self-doubt, self-sabotage and actual sickness.
The fool has a certain “Zhi” about him, utilizing mental drive and sometimes seemingly foolish bravery to uncover the absolutes and endure pinballing through some of life’s tougher moments, emerging stronger than before. Despite the bumbling around, all the biting sarcasm, and shitty-ass comments that go one step too far, he always speaks in earnest — his words imbued with some universal truth, be it big or teeny tiny.
Next week: The Hero
Nightwalking (not to be confused with streetwalking) during the pandemic took me all sorts of places. Daytime had higher probability of encountering others who also were supposed to be in lockdown, and nighttime somehow felt safer, even in Chicago. While the emptiness of the city seemed strange and eerily calm, I found this a meditative and useful space for rediscovering my love of photography. With no set destination and the streets vacant, everywhere became liminal space — a world in limbo for me to explore. A few diptychs:
FERAL-O-METER
DANGER: Rant level RED
Identity is a strange thing. Our interests and hobbies and sexual orientations and body types, we take these and pump them up to be life-sized expressions of who we are as people. Some inflate them even larger, tying them to strings and hoisting them into the air for all to see. Identity can also be something to diminish — to be bought, sold, traded, borrowed, stolen, or hidden altogether. For humans, it's never enough to just be; yet today, being able to even just exist seems like a luxury. Places for expressing identity become battlefields for survival—where social media platforms, safe spaces, and other documents of our lives are mere assets to extort and exploit. Former sources of empowerment are weaponized. Retreating to the crevasses of civilized society, or the perception of such, seems the only option.
Re: my recent Instagram lockout (funnily enough, my own fault), I spent far too long running down the list of failed methods to recover my account, being sent down rabbit holes only to re-emerge right near where I started, and never arriving to Albuquerque. It’s frustrating because Instagram has become the primary mode of communication for me and many of us, whether we like it or not. We're captive to a powerful tool that has become much too essential for such piss-poor service and support. The help they said was on the way, in fact, is neither on the way nor does it even exist. Not a thoughtless mistake but a purposeful money-saver, this is gaslighting at its finest.
As for 2FA: talk about something being both a blessing and a curse!
The first stanza of one of my favorites — a somber yet luscious meditation on midlife.
